


Goodbye, Goodbye

by orphan_account



Series: Through all of Time [10]
Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Alternative Universe Historical, Comedy, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-18
Updated: 2011-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-26 05:53:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/279464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Here we go again - the penultimate of the series.  This one is much more light-hearted than the others even though they are at war again.  The boys in RAF uniform ... whack-oh!</p><p>The Keystone Cops music played at the wake can be found here :</p><p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOqBjy_ncx8&feature=related</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Forced Landing

**Author's Note:**

> Here we go again - the penultimate of the series. This one is much more light-hearted than the others even though they are at war again. The boys in RAF uniform ... whack-oh!
> 
> The Keystone Cops music played at the wake can be found here :
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOqBjy_ncx8&feature=related

For a wake, it was a very jovial affair, but then that was always the way. This was war and comrades “didn’t make it back” regularly. Fortunately, the Bristol Beaufighter had a reputation as the “bring ‘em back home’ crate and this night fighter/bomber squadron had been spared too many wakes.

 

The pilots were crowded around the piano and the new boy, Jock’s replacement, was playing for them to have a sing-song. Although it was normally forbidden, a pint was on the top of the upright piano with Jock’s photo next to it.

 

“Make the most of it lads; we’ll be up there tomorrow night. Met just came through – the fog tonight will lift and it’ll be clear so Jerry’ll be coming over. Tonight, though, fill yer boots. My round, I believe?” As Squadron Leader, it was traditional for him to pay for the round of drinks for the toast to the fallen comrade.

 

The airmen fell solemnly silent and all turned to raise their pints to the photo.

 

“Happy landings, Jock, wherever you are, you old bugger!”

 

“Happy landings, Jock,” then followed the memories. This was to celebrate the dead navigator’s life; any tears would be shed in private. One after the other the pilots told funny stories and reminiscences.

Pilot Officer Hathaway, the new boy, accompanied them as if it were an old silent movie, expertly suiting the music to the mood. When Larry Hobson, almost unable to stand up for laughing, recounted the tale of Nipper, the squadron’s Jack Russell mascot, stealing Jock’s trousers and running around the base with the infuriated Scotsman chasing him in his underwear, Hathaway played the Keystone Cops tune. Everyone roared.

 

When the evening started to die down, Sqn. Ldr. Lewis went over to the piano, carrying a pint for the musician.

 

“Well done, lad. That’ll stand you in good stead with the others. You’ll be replacing Jock as my navigator so we’ll have a briefing together after the group briefing tomorrow afternoon. Got that?”

 

“Yes, skipper. Um – what happened to Jock?”

 

“You don’t ask that, Son. He “went home” or “he bought it” that’s all we say. But …he took a bit of tracer shell in the chest. Dead before he could even tell me he was hit. But he made it home, the Boffie didn’t let him down, bless her.”

 

*****************************

 

The next evening, nervous but excited, the new boy clambered into the Beaufighter, still unused to the cumbersome parachute cutting into his shoulders and thighs. “If you can walk upright, Sir, it ain’t on right.” The words of the NCO on his training depot came back to him.

 

Pilots are a superstitious bunch. Knowing each flight could be their last, everyone had their own little ritual they went through before take-off. Robbie Lewis went to the nose of the bomber/fighter and kissed his fingers, then placing them on the underside of the nose, he said,

“Counting on you, old girl.”

 

The pre-flight checks completed, Lewis gave the thumbs up to the ground crew who swung the propeller, removed the chocks and the aircraft started to lumber down the apron towards the runway with Nipper running alongside, barking furiously.

 

Their mission that night was to bomb an armaments factory in Lille in the Picardy region of northern France. On the way, of course, they might have to skirmish with German fighters but only enough to get them through to their destination. The flight was divided into two sections, black, the bombers and white, the ones most responsible for defending them.

 

The flight across the Channel was unusually quiet and they met no enemy aircraft until they were some way over the mainland. Hathaway as navigator was calling out the waypoints and making sure they kept on course, while Lewis flew the plane and occasionally sent a message to the Black or White sections to keep them in the formation he wanted.

 

The flack, when it hit them, came as a complete surprise. Intelligence hadn’t informed them of new gun-emplacements in this area and when the Boffie shook from nose to tail, Lewis knew instantly they’d been hit. Hathaway twisted around to look at the starboard wing.

 

“Engine’s hit, Skipper. Fire in the wing and oil all over the shop.” Good lad, thought Lewis, no panic there.

 

He checked his instruments – the oil pressure was dropping like a stone. They were going to have to bale out. He hit the rudder to make a sharp turn to starboard and allowed the aircraft to go into a shallow dive.

 

“Black Leader, Black Leader, we’re hit. You’re on your own, lads. White Leader, you have command. Good luck.” He was already feeling for the handle to open the canopy as he turned to the navigator whose normally-pale face was ashen.

 

“Now, we’re going to bale out, Son. You remember the procedures. I’m losing height as much as possible, you just get ready to abandon when I give the word.” The young man nodded and crossed himself.

 

“That’s it, Son – we’re going to need as much help as we can get.” Grimly, Lewis struggled with the controls which were getting more and more sluggish and unresponsive as the hydraulic fluid and oil bled away.

 

He mentally counted down the height on the altimeter and when he judged it right, gave the word, having to go first himself due to the design of the cockpit, praying the Pilot Officer wouldn’t muck it all up and get himself killed.

 

The two airmen parachuted down and followed procedure by getting out of their parachutes, bundling them up and then running in the opposite direction of the plane which had crashed into woodland and exploded. They were in a field so they dashed towards the hedge and crouched under it.

 

“You OK Son?”

 

“Yes thanks, Skipper. That was a bit exciting, wasn’t it?” Lewis regarded the boy stupefied – he’d actually enjoyed the experience. He shook his head and grinned.

 

“Kind of excitement I could do without.” He looked to where a ball of fire was lighting up the sky and sighed. “Goodbye old girl, I’m sorry. Come on, let’s bury these chutes and see if we can get our bearings.”

 

With the parachutes buried, they crept along the hedge to find a small country road on the other side at the far end of the field. Clambering over the gate, they followed it, sticking to the edge so they could throw themselves into the deep ditch at the side should a vehicle come by.

 

After ten minutes or so they came across a milestone that read Nouvion 10kms.

 

“Do you speak French, Hathaway?”

 

“A bit Skipper, I was always quite good at it at school.”

 

“Good, because I don’t have a word - you’ll have to do the talking for both of us. James, isn’t it?”

 

“Yes, Skipper, always James, never Jim or Jimmy – just James.”


	2. Rescue!

The sound of a vehicle coming down the road sent them diving into the ditch, face down as the large German truck rumbled past, obviously going to investigate the downed aircraft. When it was safe, they carried on and suddenly James pointed over the fence.

 

“Look, Skipper, there’s a barn over there.”

 

“Well spotted, young ‘un. We’ll rest up for a while and try to get the lie of the land in daylight. Jerry will be looking for us now and being out on the road isn’t a good idea.”

 

It was a cold, damp November night and they made their way to the barn which had a mezzanine for hay storage so they climbed quietly up the ladder and threw themselves into the sweet-smelling fodder which was like a large mattress under them.

 

Despite their flying jackets, with only their overalls underneath they were both shivering with cold. A couple of jute sacks and a horse blanket didn’t make much difference.

 

“Never mind, Skipper, we can huddle up for warmth. We used to do that all the time at school when the heating failed.” Eternally cheerful, Pilot Officer Hathaway nestled up to his Squadron Leader, arranging the make-shift covers over both of them. “Night, night then Skipper.”

 

Shaking his head, Lewis looked at the blonde head tucked into his shoulder and felt the long arm draped over his chest, thinking that the lad was terminally innocent. He patted the boy’s back and said

 

“Yes, Goodnight James.” But it took him some time to get to sleep.

 

It was a rude awakening when the farmer stuck his head up into the hay-loft and began talking to them in a stream of French patois so rapid that James couldn’t keep up.

 

In his best school-boy French he tried to explain who they were so that they could throw themselves on the peasant’s mercy. It was obvious that he had as much difficulty understanding James, as James had with him. Under the beret, the large moustache waggled from side to side and the yellow cigarette hanging from the corner of the farmer’s mouth performed a sort of can-can as he spoke. Lewis was worried he’d set fire to the barn. Eventually he held up a hand, palm out, as one would to a puppy in training and backed off down the ladder.

 

“What did he say?” Lewis asked.

 

“I think that last word was “rest” which would be “stay there” Skipper. But I don’t know if he means - stay there while I get the Bosch or stay there while I get help.”

 

“Is that all you got out of all that?”

 

“’Fraid so, his accent is shocking!”

 

They finally decided to stay in the hay loft but move around to the one window so that they could make a quick exit if the farmer proved to be a collaborator. After about an hour and a half, with no sound of a vehicle, the farmer returned with a woman in a trench-coat and beret, wheeling her bicycle into the barn. She mounted the ladder and called out in English.

 

“I say chaps, you can come out; my name is Michelle of the resistance. I have come to help you.”

 

Not believing their luck, the two British airmen emerged from their hiding place under a pile of hay under the window. Holding out a sack to them, the woman continued,

 

“Here are some clothes for you. Get changed and put your uniforms in here. I’m going to take you into town where you can hide in the local café until we can arrange false papers for you and transport to the coast. Do either of you speak French?”

 

James tried out a few phrases on her and she winced.

 

“Well, it might fool the Germans who are occupying Nouvion but I’m not sure anyone else will be able to understand you, we have a particular dialect here. Above all, don’t get the gendarme to translate for you – he doesn’t speak French any better than you do. Now hurry up.”

 

She disappeared down the ladder, leaving them to change into the blue working clothes of French peasants, complete with black berets. James was delighted.

 

“I say, Skipper, you look quite the part!” Lewis shook his head again – the bloody fool seemed to be treating it as one big joke, a school trip. He didn’t understand that war was a serious affair and they were in occupied territory.

 

Michelle met them in the barn doorway and gave them instructions before they mounted up on the mudguards of the ancient tractor the farmer was going to use to take them to town.

 

“Squadron Leader, you’ll have to pretend to be a deaf-mute for the moment. Pilot Officer, perhaps you could be his…nephew? You are both farm workers going into the town for your lunch at the café. Once there, the proprietor, René, will find a safe hiding place for you and I will come and keep you informed. Good luck chaps!” With that she pedalled off and the tractor chugged along at a bone-rattling speed with the two British airmen perched either side of the farmer.


	3. Safe house???

The ride into Nouvion was uncomfortable and their fingers were numb from gripping the mudguards so they were delighted when they were dropped in the town, in front of Café René.

 

Inside, it was very quiet, with only the proprietor, a rotund man with a moustache wearing a   
large white apron, polishing glasses behind the bar.

 

James had practiced his speech all the way up the road and he did his best to walk like a French peasant and not an RAF officer as he walked up to the bar.

 

“We are friends of Michelle, you expect us.” René looked at him for a moment and then spoke very slowly, as if to an idiot child.

 

“Michelle waits where? You said Michelle is waiting for her friends.”

 

Easier to understand than the farmer because of his very slow delivery, James got that.

 

“No,” he pointed to himself and then at Lewis “WE, friends.”

 

René muttered under his breath and poured himself a large brandy then turned and shouted

 

“Edith! Edith!”

 

A woman in an eye-watering floral dress and far too much make-up descended the stairs and advanced on them with a predatory look on her face. She spoke too rapidly for James to understand but waved the end of her scarf coquettishly at them both. Her husband heaved a deep sigh and reached for the brandy bottle again.

 

They started into a conversation, leaving the two British airmen standing around, confused.

 

“Pssst!” James heard the sound but couldn’t locate it. He stared wildly around the café but saw nobody.

 

“Pssst, Ici!” Looking down, he was aghast to find a blonde girl in a waitress’ uniform stroking his thigh. She only came up to his waist which is why he hadn’t been able to find her at first.

 

“Mimi,” she husked, turning to lean her back against him, rubbing suggestively up and down.

 

“Dear God!” he exclaimed as Lewis covered his laughter with a coughing fit and said out of the side of his mouth

 

“Yer in there, lad!”

 

Another, much taller waitress appeared from the door behind the bar and flashed them a smile of such intensity they would have put on sunglasses if they’d had them. She leaned across the counter to kiss the two of them on both cheeks, leaving large deposits of lipstick behind.

 

“Yvette,” she said. Squadron Leader Lewis forgot that he was supposed to be a deaf-mute and replied, obviously smitten

 

“Robbie.” His “nephew” shot him a furious look and shushed him.

 

“Rrrrrrrrrrrrawbee” she repeated, the rolled R making it a growl that sent shivers down both men’s spines.

 

“James … um Jaques,” Pilot Officer Hathaway corrected himself as he rubbed a sleeve across his cheek. He got another thousand-watt smile for that and felt himself blushing scarlet.

 

René shooed the girls away as if they were hens and then showed them to a table in the far corner of the café.

 

“Eat, then conceal,” he said, very, very slowly. There being no-one else there, the two men dared to speak English to each other.

 

“Well this is a bit of alright, isn’t it Skipper? Oh look, they’ve got a piano, I wonder if anyone would mind?” Before Lewis could stop him, the young Pilot Officer had gone over and started playing Roses of Picardie.

 

The wife, Edith shot out of the kitchen as if she’d been fired from a canon, squealing with delight and proceeded to place a hand dramatically on Hathaway’s shoulder and the most dreadful sounds came out of her mouth. It took Lewis a few seconds to realise she was singing.

 

At that moment three German officers came into the café and took a table. Lewis stared out of the window and wondered how long it would be before they got themselves shot.

 

A slightly portly German officer with smoothed down hair made his way to the piano where Edith had now finished her “song” and spoke to James in heavily-accented French. The younger man budged up, another chair was found and they began to play a four-handed Brahms duet together. Lewis put his head down on the table and sighed – escape and evasion, rule number one, blend in, don’t draw attention to yourself – Oh God!

 

There was a round of applause which Edith took to be for her and giggled girlishly, bowing and blowing kisses. The pianists set off on an impromptu duet of Lili Marlene and a man in a long leather trench-coat stood in the doorway, eying James suspiciously.

 

“You!” he barked in French “You are not French.” Lewis’ heart stopped beating as the sinister man limped over, leaning heavily on a walking stick. “You are too tall! You are Aryan! You must be Cherman!”

 

Slouching in his chair to reduce his height and gesticulating with his hands, not articulating properly, Hathaway reassured him that he was indeed a French farm worker.

 

It was a huge relief when another waitress with long dark hair came over with a plate of beef stew for each of them and James could tear himself away from the piano and the attentions of the uniformed Lieutenant. They couldn’t speak but Lewis was looking daggers at his navigator all through the meal.

 

Dessert was a crème caramel which was a novelty for both of them and Squadron Leader Lewis just prayed the lad wouldn’t blurt out something about “pudding” but they were distracted by the arrival of a very tall gendarme who crossed the thresh-hold with a very loud

 

“Banjo”

 

René, behind the counter, muttered a “mon dieu” and reached for the brandy glass again before replying “Banjo, officer” as if resigned to this. The gendarme took a glass of wine from René and came across to their table with exaggerated nonchalance, giving them ostentatious winks as he did so.

 

He sat down at the table and started to talk them very assuredly but totally incomprehensibly. They both nodded and looked serious as if they understood. He stood up and smiled, winked again and left the café with a

 

“Or bra”

 

The two airmen looked at each other in complete confusion and were very relieved when Madame Edith showed them to the back room where they descended through a trap door into the cellar.

 

“It’s a bloody mad-house here,” observed the Squadron Leader.

 

“Yes, Skipper, but we do seem to have a lot of wine down here,” replied James cheerfully, starting to examine the labels. “We really have fallen on our feet.”


	4. French Lessons

Around night-fall, the tiny waitress brought them some food and some hours later the tall waitress Yvette descended the ladder and held a hand out to Squadron Leader Lewis, gabbling in French and making shivery motions with her hands on her arms. Pilot Officer Hathaway listened carefully and then said

 

“I think the heating is broken in her room, she definitely said “bedroom” and she wants you to go and fix it, Skipper.”

 

One more sound of that throaty “Rrrrrrrawwbeeeeeeee” was enough to convince the senior pilot to disappear up the ladder, leaving the navigator arranging the wine bottles in their racks by type, year and preference (he’d tasted one or two)

 

“Funny that,” he thought to himself “Wouldn’t have had the Skipper down as a handyman. Just goes to show.”

 

Psssssssssssst. This time he knew to look down immediately. Mimi was tugging at his trouser leg and grinning at him. What on earth did she want? When he didn’t follow her to the steps, she turned back with an exaggerated sigh and grabbed his hand. For a very small woman, she was exceptionally strong and he found himself, with realisation dawning, being hauled away.

 

Conscious of the dressing-down he’d had from his Skipper, he didn’t want to call attention to himself any more so he went meekly, muttering “Good God!” under his breath.

 

*******************

 

The next day they were taken out to the garden shed at the back of the café and told to stay there.

 

There was sheepishness about both men, who couldn’t stop yawning. The arrival of Michelle of the Resistance was a relief to them both.

 

“Good news chaps. We should have your papers by tonight and with any luck I can arrange transport to Boulogne. From there you’ll be taken on a fishing boat to the English coast.”

 

“Oh, that’s …wonderful.” Why the hesitation? James wondered. The Skipper didn’t look really pleased.

 

They tried playing I-Spy but having got through H for Hen and C for Chicken and W for Wood they tired of it. In fact, the whole exciting adventure of being in occupied territory was becoming quite boring …until the evenings.

 

The pattern was established, even if neither of them ever spoke of it. On the morning of the fourth day when they were packed into the back of a lorry under sacks of potatoes, the staff of Café René took turns in whispering their goodbyes, all except Officer Crabtree who stood at the tailgate humming the song from the First War “Goodbyeeeeeeeee”

 

The journey to the coast was long and not particularly comfortable; potatoes being one of the lumpiest mattresses known to man, but both men fell asleep. For some reason they were both exhausted.

 

Once on the fishing boat they were hidden below decks and the Squadron Leader turned to his junior.

 

“Was it a good adventure then young ‘un?”

 

“Too right, Skipper,” replied the navigator, stifling a prodigious yawn.

 

“Did you learn much from it then?”

 

“Not half, Skipper.” The young Pilot Officer blushed and then both men began to laugh. It had been a French Farce!


End file.
